1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automated payment processing, and deals more particularly with methods, systems, and computer program products for using business events and configured policy to carry out payment processing for a variety of payment methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
The popularity of electronic commerce (“e-commerce”), or buying goods and services over a network such as the Internet, continues to increase at a tremendous pace. Estimates are consumer electronic commerce transactions will grow from under $10 billion in 1998 to over $100 billion by 2003.
A particular merchant may participate in electronic commerce only with consumers (i.e., in business-to-consumer or “B2C” transactions), or only with other businesses (i.e., in business-to-business or “B2B” transactions). Or, a merchant may participate in electronic commerce for both B2C and B2B transactions.
Getting paid for their goods and services is essential to the merchants involved in electronic commerce, and customers expect the payment process to be easy-to-use, flexible, and reliable. In business-to-consumer transactions, in particular, customers expect merchants to offer the same wide range of payment choices that are found in conventional brick-and-mortar stores and that are offered for mail-order or telephone-order sales.
Many different payment choices are possible for electronic commerce transactions. Credit cards are one popular payment method or “payment instrument”. Additional choices include debit cards, stored-value cards, gift certificate acceptance, loyalty systems, automated clearing house (“ACH”) transactions, wire transfer, and electronic fluids transfer. These payment methods are well known, and have been used for many years in conventional buyer/seller transactions. Several newer payment methods have been developed in recent years, specifically for electronic commerce. These include electronic checks, electronic cash, and electronic wallets (also referred to as “e-checks”, “e-cash”, and “e-wallets”, respectively).
E-check payments are designed to mimic traditional paper check payments. E-cash similarly, is designed to mimic payment by cash. Typically, e-check payments are carried out by transferring funds from a user's bank account in response to the user making an e-check payment request. For e-cash transactions, a user transfers money from a bank account (or card account) into a separate electronic account, and then makes payments against the funds represented by this account. E-wallets “hold” information of the type held by a real wallet, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, billing addresses, and other types of account numbers and information. Using an e-wallet makes the payment process simpler and faster for the user, as the wallet software automatically performs certain payment steps. For example, rather than requiring the user to type in a rather long credit card number and its expiration date when paying with a credit card, the e-wallet software supplies this information automatically, once the user selects which credit card to use for a particular transaction.
Developing software that supports a selection of payment methods for e-commerce is a very complex undertaking, as the logic for processing each payment method may be influenced by a variety of factors, and different payment methods typically each have their own nuances that must be accommodated. For example, a billing address is typically required when processing a credit card payment, but not when processing an ACH transaction. As another example, even though credit cards and gift certificates may both use expiration dates, the meaning of the date is somewhat different for each payment method. Furthermore, each of the payment methods may be offered by a number of different providers, and different providers may have different procedures that must be followed. The payment processing can also be affected by the type of item being ordered. For example, for purchases of services or intangible goods (also known as “soft goods”), the timing at which the buyer's credit card can be charged may be different than if tangible goods (also known as “hard goods”) are being sold. In addition, different procedures may apply to a particular payment method depending on the laws and regulations of a country or region in which a purchase is made. For example, in the United States, a credit card cannot be charged for hard goods until those goods have shipped to the buyer, whereas in some other countries, this is not the case.
Accommodating the wide range of pertinent factors involved in payment processing for multiple payment methods within a merchant's e-commerce software tends to make that software overly complex and difficult to maintain, and diverts the developer's attention from addressing the merchant's core business needs.
Accordingly, what is needed are improved techniques for processing electronic commerce payments (or automated payment processing used for other forms of buyer/seller transactions).